Reporting Line of Duty Injuries, Exposures, & Deaths Matters
The more we know, the better we can help you. By reporting line of duty injuries, exposures, and deaths, you are helping to provide valuable insight into improving provider health and safety. If possible, the Office of EMS recommends using both of the following two ways to report line of duty exposures, deaths, and injuries:
1. EMS Event Notification Tool – E.V.E.N.T.
Within EMS, very little data exists about many aspects of the profession. In an effort to address this shortfall, NAEMT, in collaboration with the Center for Leadership, Innovation and Research in EMS, has developed an anonymous system for EMS practitioners to report EMS and patient safety near-miss events, line of duty deaths, and incidents of violence against EMS practitioner by answering a series of questions in an online format.
The purpose of the system is to collect and aggregate data that will then be analyzed and used in the development of EMS policies and procedures, and for use in training, educating and preventing similar events from occurring in the future. No individual responses are shared or transmitted to other parties. This reporting system is called the EMS Voluntary Event Notification Tool (E.V.E.N.T.) and is available at www.emseventreport.org.
The aggregated data collected will be provided to state EMS offices and the appropriate federal agencies with jurisdiction over EMS on a quarterly and annual basis. Timely aggregated reports submitted through a variety of venues will make E.V.E.N.T. a living mechanism for change. It is envisioned that one of the primary end users of this data will be those responsible for the development of EMS policies at the state and federal levels.
States urged to support system
Support of this online reporting tool by EMS organizations across our nation will be key to its success. State EMS offices, local and state EMS organizations, and EMS agencies are encouraged to become site partners for E.V.E.N.T. The National Association of State EMS Officials, as well as many other national and state EMS organizations, have already signed on as site partners.
Upon request, NAEMT and the Center for Leadership, Innovation and Research in EMS are able to provide representatives to speak about the system at local and national EMS meetings or conferences. Please contact NAEMT at info@naemt.org with any questions about the system.
2. Line of Duty Injury Form
For agencies who use Image Trend, use the “Line of Duty Injury” form in your electronic patient care reports as shown below:*
*This form is only visible for agencies who are direct entry users of the Virginia Elite system or agencies who use 3rd party ImageTrend. For agencies using third party EMS software who are collecting line of duty injury data, please let us know your software company is identifying those items and we will work with ImageTrend to ensure your data is represented in the Commonwealth's system. For support, please contact OEMS via email: support@oemssupport.kayako.com.
3. Report a Struck By Incident | ResponderSafety.com
The Emergency Responder Safety Institute (ERSI), a committee of the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Firemen’s Association (CVVFA), has worked for years to improve the safety of those who respond to incidents on America’s roadways. Continuing to be proactive in this effort, CVVFA/ERSI has again worked to develop a better document and analyze how and where our country’s first responders are being struck, injured, and killed. This will be accomplished through this enhanced platform and capability to solicit and collect struck by incident information from voluntary reporters and significantly upgrading its data collection functionality and depth.